Best WhatsApp team inbox tools
Most WhatsApp tool roundups compare things nobody verified. This one lists only tools whose published pricing we read ourselves, on a date we state, and says which tools we left out and why. It also says where we are not the right answer, because a comparison that never reaches that conclusion is an advert.
- Only tools whose own pricing pages we read, with the date we read them
- The pricing model matters more than the headline price, and it differs sharply
- What none of them include: Meta’s per-message charges
- Three cases where marv.Inbox is the wrong choice
Short answer
Pick on the pricing model before the price. These tools charge in genuinely different ways: per user, per user with a conversation cap, per agent, or per workspace in flat tiers. A tool that looks cheap at five people can be the expensive one at fifteen, and the other way round.
None of them include Meta’s message charges. Whatever you pay the software vendor, Meta bills you separately for delivered templates.
How this was put together
On 3 August 2026 we opened each vendor’s own published pricing page and recorded what it said. Every figure in the table below comes from those pages and from nowhere else. No reseller pages, no blog roundups, no search summaries.
We did not install and run each product. We are not going to claim a hands-on test we did not do, and you should be sceptical of any vendor-published roundup that does.
Prices change without notice. The checked date is on this page for exactly that reason, and if you are making a decision, open the vendor’s page yourself before you sign anything.
TimelinesAI, SleekFlow and AiSensy are not in the table because we did not verify their current pricing.
The comparison
Entry price means the cheapest paid plan with a published figure. Read the pricing model column first: it is what actually decides your bill.
| Tool | Pricing model | Entry price as published | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| marv.Inbox | Per workspace, flat tiers by team size | $58 per month, $178 at the next tier | Teams that want cost to track headcount in steps rather than per seat or per conversation |
| respond.io | Per plan with included users, extra users charged | $79 per month, 5 users included | Teams wanting many channels beyond WhatsApp, and comfortable with a contact-count dimension on higher plans |
| Trengo | Per plan with included users and a conversation cap | €299 per month, 10 users and 500 conversations | Larger teams whose conversation volume is predictable enough to size a cap |
| Chatwoot | Per agent per month, with a free tier and a self-hosted option | $0 for up to 2 agents, then $19 per agent per month billed annually | Small teams, and anyone who wants to self-host rather than buy a hosted product |
| WATI | Per plan with included users, extra users charged | Plan price not captured on the checked date; extra users listed at $24 and $69 per user per month by plan | Teams already anchored on WhatsApp-only tooling, if the plan price fits |
Figures are what each vendor published on 3 August 2026. Currencies are as each vendor lists them and are not converted. None of these figures include Meta’s per-message charges.
The line item every comparison leaves out
Your software subscription is not your WhatsApp bill. Meta charges separately for delivered template messages, by template category and by the recipient’s country, with a monthly volume tier on top. respond.io states this plainly on its own pricing page, and it is true of every tool here including ours.
Two dated changes make this worse to ignore. Since 1 August 2026, Meta Business Agent messages are charged per token. From 1 October 2026, service messages and utility messages sent in response to users become chargeable, which means the in-window replies that make up most of a support team’s volume stop being free.
So compare three numbers, not one: the subscription, your expected Meta message cost today, and your expected Meta message cost after October.
What is deliberately not in the table
Twilio is not a team inbox. It is an API and messaging provider that other products, including inboxes, are built on top of. Putting it in a row next to an inbox would compare two different kinds of thing, which is how these roundups usually mislead.
The WhatsApp Business app is not in the table either, and for many readers it is the right answer. Four linked devices, or ten with a Meta subscription, covers a lot of teams. Our guide on whether multiple users can use WhatsApp Business goes through that properly.
TimelinesAI, SleekFlow and AiSensy are absent because we did not verify them on the checked date.
When marv.Inbox is the wrong choice
- ▲You are one or two people who never touch the same customer. Use the free WhatsApp Business app. Nothing here will pay for itself.
- ▲You need to self-host, for policy or data-residency reasons. We are a hosted product; Chatwoot has a self-hosted option and we do not.
- ▲You need a security certification for procurement. We hold neither SOC 2 nor ISO 27001, so if that is a hard requirement we are not eligible yet.
- ▲You want an interface in Arabic. The inbox ships in English and Hebrew today.
- ▲You need channels we have not shipped. WhatsApp and Messenger are live; Instagram and Telegram are not.
Buying questions
Which is cheapest?+
It depends entirely on team size and volume, which is why the pricing model column exists. A per-agent tool is cheapest for two people and expensive for twenty; a flat-tier tool is the reverse.
Do any of these include WhatsApp message costs?+
No. Meta bills delivered template messages separately, by category and destination country. respond.io says so on its own pricing page, and it applies to all of them.
Did you test all of these?+
No, and we will not say otherwise. We read each vendor’s published pricing page on 3 August 2026 and recorded what it said. That is the whole claim.
Why are some well-known tools missing?+
Because we did not verify them on the checked date, or because they are a different category, like Twilio. An unverified row is worse than no row.
Are these prices current?+
They were on 3 August 2026. Vendors change pricing without notice, so open their page before you decide.
Sources, checked June 2026
Sources
The published pricing page of each vendor, read on the checked date.
- respond.io pricing
- Trengo pricing
- Chatwoot pricing
- WATI pricing
- Meta for Developers: WhatsApp Business Platform pricing
Checked on 2026-08-03
Who wrote this
marv.Inbox team
Product and support team, marv.Inbox
We build marv.Inbox and we run our own customer conversations inside it, on the same WhatsApp number the buttons on this page open.
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